


Homecoming

by Bunney



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-23
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 20:26:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bunney/pseuds/Bunney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucius has returned from Azkaban, to Narcissa's despair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homecoming

Narcissa prayed that he wouldn't want her.

She curled on her side, arms wrapped around her knees, as close to the edge of the bed as she dared. She could hear him shuffling around the room, favoring his left leg, dragging it behind him as he moved from bathroom to window to wardrobe to hearth. Closing her eyes tightly, willing away the tears seeping from beneath her lashes, she berated herself for her selfish thoughts. This was Lucius, her husband, the man she'd sworn to love, honor and obey in all things, until death did them part.

Death or Azkaban.

But this wasn't the man she'd married, this gaunt, stinking wretch. Only a day out of Azkaban Fortress, after serving a sentence of nearly fifteen years, Lucius was barely sane, hardly human. The Ministry officials had brought him home only that morning; she'd waited with Draco and Pansy and their three children, thrilled that her beloved husband would be restored to her that very day. 

But, the creature they'd left on her doorstep, not even having the courtesy to bring him into the house, had engendered pity and disgust in even the house-elves. She'd heard their hissing whispers as Lucius had blinked wearily around the foyer and her face had flamed with humiliation as Pansy had sucked in a breath and turned her face away from the sight of her father-in-law, in his ragged and filthy prison garb.

Even Draco had been unable to bear the company of his once-adored father. After a tense dinner in which Lucius had sullenly poked at food more exotic and rich than any he'd had in a decade, Draco had gathered his wife and frightened children together and after pleading their exhaustion, hastily left the Manor. Lucius hadn't even acknowledged their departure, choosing instead to stare into the bottom of his wineglass with a gaze gone dead.

Now Narcissa lay in their cold marriage bed and dreaded the skeletal man drifting around the room, dousing candles and lowering the sashes. When he slipped between the sheets and bade her come closer in a hoarse voice that still commanded her submission, Narcissa went without a word. And when he rolled her onto her stomach and pushed into her unprepared body, the silky words of lust and love he'd have once whispered in her ear conspicuously missing, Narcissa sobbed silently into her pillow.

~fin~


End file.
